Unique Visitors Since 2014

Insights from the Pavement: Goal-Focused on the Go

For some the biggest benefit of travel is the time to distance ourselves, both metaphorically and physically, from the life we have back home. For whatever reason this came into play, we obviously needed this time to collect ourselves and recharge the batteries.

Putting a focal point to our release from the past patterns of our lives has a lot to do with the angle and theme of the trip at hand. And the variables that accompany the plan and the execution of even a single trip can be so daunting that we often get lost in those details and forget the original point of the trip.

Taiwan’s Alishan vista

So how can we keep focus in a time of flux?

The best answer would be to remain mindful of our goals. To do this effectively, we should first determine how we remember things. This will help us find creative ways of remaining centered on our original objectives.

Are we more visual, and could therefore benefit from writing down our goals? Should we bring along a journal and add a writing theme to our trip to help us record how or if we’re doing what we set out to do? Is there perhaps someone coming with us who is better at memorizing our important items? Or would we be better off bringing a handheld recorder to use for keeping on track and reflecting our thoughts?

The key to remembering often isn’t the vehicle that we use to drive our focus forward, but rather simply being proactive. Taking action will do more to steady our minds about our goals, because we’re taking an active role in achieving them. And even the slightest conscious effort of maintaining focus is worth a hundred pages in a diary that discuss the same things. Five minutes of putting our bodies to work in an effort of accomplishing our aims is equivalent to ten times that amount of daydreaming out the office window.

Put your thoughts into action and your efforts will pay you back in remaining on task no matter what your travel plans or challenges.

Insights from the Pavement is a new style of blog that I am trying out. These will be posted a couple times per week for the next few months. And I am interested in what my readers and passersby think of them. So be sure to let me know your thoughts in the comments section.